Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Tell me about. Ruger 45 colts

Bea, What stocks are those?

You've already gotten some good info.

I want to send along a caution, though. The blued .45 4-5/8" guns are being shipped with front sights that are too short. Even with cowboy loads, with the rear sight screwed down hard, my last gun still shot high. With 300s and a max-ish load of Win 296 I was well over 8 feet above point of aim at 100 yards.

It took the gun out of the realm of usefulness for me.

Late stainless guns (now out of production) came with a much taller sight which was tall enough, however, they had steel grip frames rather than aluminum putting the weight along side the .44 mag versions which took away the advantages they could have had.

Tom

They are double tough no-nonsense hunting revolvers very reasonably priced IMHO, 5.5" would be my choice for a hunter, the 335 gr Cast Performance WFNGC's at 1200 fps would do it all.

Gunner

It "would" for sure, but we all know you're not stopping at 1200.....

FWIW, I went through an internal debate about having my 5.5" Bisley leave the stable. It's going to get some "extras" instead.

George

Im still winning the auction on gun broker

I am pretty sold on em! Only own 6 of them. Mine all like Tightgroup & Unique with 260 grain LBT Cast Bullets going anywhere from 900 FPS in my Flattops up to 1350 fps with WW-296 and 300 grain LBT WFN in my Bisley Models built by Clements and Bowen. They are all very accurate! Some of them are even more accurate than my Freedom Arms .454 Causull. I much prefere the 5.5" barrel lengths, but I've got ever barrel leng Ruger ever made. Usually pack mine around in a Old El Paso Saddlery Tom Three Persons here at the ranch, with a CCI Snake load / shot shell as the first round in the chamber.
I've dispatched several big rattlesnakes up to 6' long & tons of feral hogs. Hard to beat a Ruger in .45 LC for the money, reliability, & accuracy. I prefer the Bisley grip for heavy hunting loads, as it is more control-able & less punishing with the heavy hunting loads. For lite loads or original .45 LC velocity, I prefer the Flattops.

It like a bad dug addiction... Buy one of em & your hooked! Hope you enjoy!

For balance and shootability, I like my 4 5/8" barreled Ruger Vaquero with black micarta Birdshead grips.

I blame this place. People like George convinced me to get the superblackhawk hunter in 44 then Greg and Keith. And some others coaxed me into tryingbthe cast bullet thing and yea now I need a bisley in 45 colt

Yep! No shortages of "bad" influences here on the Fire

They may be bad influences, but are definitely good people and i hope to meet them someday

No doubt.

John Linebaugh has written some good articles on what can be achieved with the .45 Colt, even with "mere" S&W Model 25s.

As to the front sight height, the other problem is that on the blued ones, the front sight is one unit and is soldered on (at least mine is), rather than screwed as on the SS ones. This means that installing a taller sight requires a trip to the gunsmith to grind the old sight down and dovetail the base for a new FS. Mind you, Rugers are reasonably priced and can be got used so that shouldn't break the bank. Still, it would be nice to have replaceable blades on the blued ones as well, as Ruger knows perfectly well what the Blackhawk is capable of with heavy bullets. I don't need to load 300 gr. bullets but I wouldn't mind putting an XS-type white line sight on mine, or a gold bead.

Stuart

I had a 5.5" stainless Bisley convertible that looked just like the one ten_in_cal posted a picture of.

My heavy load was a 310gr LBT from Leadheads at 1250 fps. Amazing how well these shot at 100 yards, but I never killed an animal with it. What really surprised me was how well the 45 ACP cylinder and loads shot. Absolute tackdriver!

I think Ruger fixed the tight cylinder throats several years ago, but its something to be aware of.

I sold the Bisley and Super Blackhawk. Just too much extra weight in the mountains and canyons. But as a range-toy, the Bisley was a lot better at handling recoil compared to the SBH for me.

Jason

Mine (NM Blackhawk, blued, 4 5/8" barrel) had the opposite problem- they were too big! Fortunately Ruger Customer Service came through and they replaced the cylinder, even though I was not the original owner.

"I sold the Bisley and Super Blackhawk. Just too much extra weight in the mountains and canyons. But as a range-toy, the Bisley was a lot better at handling recoil compared to the SBH for me."

Jason... what did you replace it with?

"Jack Huntington does a beautiful Bisley that is recontoured and the grips are made to fir your hand."

Whitworth... Beautiful wood. What does JRH do? Give a little more room between the grip and your finger?


Jerry

Tough to beat a 5 1/2" Bisley 45 Colt, especially when sitting along side a bottle of sweet tea.

I'm not buying that sweet tea story, Ed!

Some day you need to drop by so I can prove it.

It's good to see you repented your evil ways before it was too late.

I got the can't helpits for a lanyard ring for mine.